I like metalheads. I am one. My husband Dave, who is my best friend and personal hero, has introduced me to countless musicians, artists, bands and fans who have enriched my life and expanded my view of the world. Sure there are fatwitted folk in our tribe, like every other. The majority of those that I have met are intelligent, thoughtful and articulate people. Ask my friend Sarah who had a deep philosophical discussion with Mike from YOB and Garett from Secrets of the Sky during a break at a recent show. The lyrics of Neil Peart and Bruce Dickinson have enlightened and encouraged me. YOB’s music has helped me transcend this temporary existence. Ronnie James Dio’s voice is the closest thing to an angel I will ever experience. But even I was surprised how beautifully written and heartfelt this book by Ra
ndy Blythe, vocalist for lamb of god, was.
This is no simple prison diary or preening vanity project. Randy approaches the book and subject matter with a sincere and open heart in search of the truth. At times unbearably harrowing, with razor-sharp insight and a little black humor, this book covers not just the events that followed his arrest and subsequent incarceration in Pankrac prison (said to be the worst in the Czech Republic). There is so much more to the story. He has also produced a moving portrait of a man who has come to terms with his alcohol addiction, as well as an interesting account of what it is like to tour the world with a metal band and actually make a living at it.
On June 27, 2012 Randy and his bandmates landed in Prague for a show. It had been two years since their last show in the Czech Republic. Randy was met and detained on the jetway by a policewoman who was backed up by 5 heavily-armed men dressed in SWAT-type tactical gear. She handed him a piece of paper, in poorly worded English, that stated he was being charged in the death of a young man who attended their last show there two years ago and that he had knowingly and with harmful intent, thrown a fan from the stage, who sustained a head injury and subsequently died in a military hospital in Prague. This was the first that Randy, the band and their representation had ever heard of this awful occurrence.
The next five weeks were a waking nightmare, as he struggled to understand what had actually happened and to proclaim his innocence, all in a foreign country with considerable language and cultural barriers to overcome. After 37 days of incarceration (34 at Pankrac) he was released and returned to the States. The story could have ended there and indeed some did advise against him returning to Prague for the trial. But that is not the kind of man Randy is and strives to be. The right thing to do was to go back, stand trial and be part of discovering and maintaining the truth of what happened that fateful night and to hopefully provide answers and a modicum o
f peace to the family of that young man. He was acquitted of the charges.
I am just another human being, no better or worse than anyone else on this planet, and as such I still make mistakes. I always will. But I own my mistakes now, and try not to repeat them when I can.
I am going to carry this moving book with me for a long time to come and proclaim it my #1 book of 2015.
